What? Isn’t Ektar a colour film? How could you develop it with a black and white developer?
Fun fact, the base layer of a C-41 film before the colour layers are black and white. So with black and white chemicals you’re essentially washing away the colour sensitive layers.
This is how this accident happened (I wouldn’t purposely develop an expensive film in B&W!). Someone gave me a roll of Ektar where the canister is slightly crushed, meaning the leader couldn’t properly slide out. So I took it out and respooled it into a reloadable canister, which I have a lot of because I’ve been bulk loading B&W film.
So I went and shot it, and later somehow it ended up in my pile of films that is waiting to be developed. I assumed that it was Rollei Retro 400s since that was what I’ve been bulk loading. Imagine my surprise when I took it out of the tank and saw the orange mask distinctive to C-41 films.
Perhaps it is a bit underexposed, but when I scanned them I was quite blown away by what I saw because I wasn’t expecting it to look as good as it did. The shadows were a bit crushed at certain point rendering shadow detail moot, but I like the heavy contrast and the slight glow the highlights seem to have that almost looks as if there isn’t any anti-halation layer.
I won’t necessarily recommend you to do this, but it is a fun experiment. Maybe try it with a roll of expired film, the results might surprise you!
